Dear Alexandra,

At present, civil society is the vector of local development. Aware of this importance, countries like Brazil involve civil society in local territorial development. In Brazil, in a participatory democracy, civil society represented by neighbourhood committees and other structures participate in local development. This policy of the neighborhood as social relations and citizenship allows citizens to think about their position in a society. It allows the realization of the democratic project. In this project, initiatives from civil society can be submitted to local authorities or government agencies.

Dear Alexandra,

What I observe in the Netherlands, and other European Countries, is how civil society more and more organises itself in cooperatives.

For instance a care cooperative in the Netherlands is an organisation of several hundred inhabitants of a neighbourhood. As volunteers they look after one another. In its relationship with the authorities the cooperative can make the point that it does a better job organising care than the government does. It can make a deal with the government to take over work, and in return receive part of the budget from the government.

Another example is an energy cooperative wherein inhabitants of a neighbourhood are organised to step over from fossil energy to clean energy. As a cooperative they can hire a company to build their windmill.

So, as an answer to your question, the cooperative is an instrument for civil society to work with both the authorities, and companies.

Finally, in many cases an association can do most of what a cooperative can do, and legally an association is much more easy to develop. So often we advise people to just start with an association and only change it into a cooperative when nececessary. For instance when you take a lot of risk.

Good luck, Jurgen

Civil society-led interventions have been of two kinds: push and pull. In the former, citizens speak up and communicate their experience of an issue; in the latter, they draw information from available sources and use that to act in some way. (Needless to say, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive.)

Civil society organizations that enjoy a trusted relationship with their members or constituencies can channel information between these and government. Where they have avoided questionable allegiances they can also serve as watchdogs. In addition, if they are well-developed, they can represent a wide variety of interests and bring diverse perspectives to design strategy in partnership with interested parties and so increase chances of success. Of course, not all civil society organizations display these attributes: limits may be imposed by government, resources, or citizens themselves (who may not be sufficiently aware of the costs of the issue at hand), in which case four types of interventions, listed below, are needed.

To strengthen civil society's contribution to addressing issues, actors (e.g., development agencies, governments, nongovernment organizations, philanthropic organizations, the private sector, etc.) can:

• Foster institutional environments conducive to the development of civil society and its participation in public affairs;
• Promote the cooperation of public and civil society actors in targeted efforts;
• Encourage a broad mobilization against the issue at hand; and
• Develop the capacities of civil society organizations.

This question is too ample and ambiguous. Perhaps is should be changed to address the often different and even opposing relations, between state/society and corporate/communitary, consensual/legal rules/obligations?

A reference to look at which delves into this question is: Allies or adversaries: NGOs and the state in Africa, Jennifer N. Brass, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016

From my own work on this subject I would say that one can;t look at the positive engagement without as well looking at negative engagement--they are different sides if the same coin. Encouraging positive engagement will come with the price of managing negative engagement, e.g., political manipulation

This is rather difficulty in a country like Nigeria where government is seen as all in all. Any civil society project that will not be of politics and political interest to government is muscled to extinction by the government. So the only way out is to have formidable, incorruptible, and impartial Judiciary that will advocate for the civil society. But such a formidable, incorruptible, and impartial Judiciary is too difficult, perhaps absolutely impossible, to attain/have in the present day Nigeria.

I like your appeal for an impartial rule of law, which is always and everywhere something to be achieved and strongly supported. This is the process through which civil society is created and expanded. I suspect most scholars, since Hegel/Marx/Gramsci saw civil society as a goal and utopia yet to be achieved and supportedthrough daily praxis !

In the enclosures see my research report with its Frenchtranslation in the Bibliography.

Good luck, Okechukwu!

Civil society organizations (CSOs) are often assumed to be institutions that facilitate communication between citizens and policymakers. However, CSO advocacy is only as effective as the space allowed by government, the resources available from funders, and their own internal capacity. Among the forces that dislodged entrenched authoritarianism in Africa and brought about the beginnings of formal democracy in the early 1990s, the continent’s nascent civil societies were in the forefront. Although external influences such as the fall of communism and pressure from foreign donors were important, it was often the resourcefulness, dedication, and tenacity of domestic civil society that initiated and sustained the process of transition. The opening of once-forbidden debate on new political directions; the decriminalization of dissent and the acceptance (however grudging) of pluralist politics; the convening of sovereign national conferences and constituent assemblies; preparations for competitive elections; and, in a significant number of cases, the eventual installation of elected governments—for all these things, civil societies can take a large share of credit.

This is a very actual and key issue to tackle the effects and impacts we have been suffering from the status quo of traditional democracy. Nowadays, this issue is more than crucial to face effectively the emerging changes we are beginning to live around our countries in the realm of this pandemic.

Many organizations have been trying to get civil society involved in pubic planning and management for quite a long time. Results are encouraging but, as a whole, we still do not see a genuine citizens´ initiative on a firm, sustainable and effective involvement.

From the long experience developed in some countries of the south american region, there is a growing loss of trust, interest and the practice of human principles and values, found in civil society, politicians, policy and decision makers, probably produced by recurrent disappointments and contamination coming from the ways in which local/central governments and even the very civil society organizations, have managed public matters and resources.

What we need is to transform every civil society in a civic society, provided with a participation, planning and management culture, to build from ourselves and in every organization and public institutions a new way of thinking, with a strategic vision, true solidarity for equity, and access to sound decision making processes.

Other key aspects as the rule of law, new democracy standards, norms and controls, will then be conformed to build long term national strategies of development for equity, sustainability and the improvement of life specially for those always forgotten in every country.